


Accident Prone

by LelithSugar



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Blood and Gore, Consensual Kink, Consensual Thramsay, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Jealousy, Knifeplay, M/M, Minor Character Death, Protectiveness, Public Claiming, Ramsay is his own warning, Roleplay, Scarification, Violence, because it's an AU, if you didn't want to read about flaying you're in the wrong fandom, no stockholm syndrome or whatnot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-18 09:11:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11871159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LelithSugar/pseuds/LelithSugar
Summary: Theon gets hurt (and not in the way he likes); Ramsay stakes a claim; someone has a really unfortunate accident. These things may be related.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Fic that was Promised! Dedicated to Polly and MyLifeUnedited in thanks for the support, and because they wanted a Jealous Rage Ramsay fic, and to find out the backstory to a few references in the AU. Ask, and ye shall receive! Well. Ask and I’ll think about it.
> 
> Semi inspired by the fucking hero on Reddit who had a skin removal scarification of the flayed man sigil. Well done. 
> 
> Warning: that graphic depictions of violence alert ain't fucking about. This gets a bit American Psycho and then later descends into smut: if you'd like to skip over the horridness (a lot, but not all of which is referenced/imagined/'off camera') then skip straight to chapter two. It's not totally gore-free after that but it's a darn sight less mental and there's the usual fluffy bdsm smut, aftercare, banter... all that jazz. 
> 
> And one more: on the AU. In this AU we diverge from canon at the end of series two, so in series-verse that's before we even meet Ramsay, and as such I have dumped a bucket of poetic licence over the character and the relationship. Say, perhaps, that his reputation is due in part to some truth plus a hefty measure of scaremongering and exaggeration. Say, also, that we can stretch to darling Theon being an incorrigible pervert, with particular proclivities. Could we then perhaps imagine that when these two meet, there's something of a shared epiphany, they fall madly in love and use the stories that spring up from the occasional well placed bit of torture equipment and obvious scarring to hide in plain sight. And maybe get off on making people think the worst and watch the rest.
> 
> Is that ridiculous? Yes, of course it is, but it's more fun than writing about abuse. Come get your guilt free smut fix!

“Look at the state of you. You must take better care of yourself.” 

Seated by Theon's knees, Ramsay strips his trousers down to gather awkwardly around his feet, leaving his tunic on, watching him stiffen under the discomfort of being inspected, and admiring the stripes on the back of his legs.

“And how did you come by these?”

It'd seem a strange question, considering he put them there himself just two days hence, but Theon knows this game, and he likes it: he gets to play the contrite servant, the chastised child, whilst Ramsay fawns and sympathises about how loyal he must be to this cruel and horrible master of his. It's silly and they always enjoy it. 

“I tripped and spilled my master's wine in front of his important guests. He taught me a lesson... with his belt."  Theon grins at him in a manner that leaves absolutely no doubt at to how he feels about that, like even saying the words is a thrill for him. It's one of his favourite scenarios: an arguably legitimate punishment for failures or mistakes in his servitude. He does like a bit of authenticity. The fact that Ramsay had quite unmistakably stretched a foot out and sent Theon sailing over his shin to crash, tray full of jugs and cups and all, into the cobbles whilst the Bastard's Boys fell about with laughter, not only at his slip but the fact that Ramsay would undoubtedly punish him for his own jape, was obviously by-the-by. And Ramsay had indeed taken his belt to Theon's back, then slipped down to land the blows on his arse and thighs as if inconsequentially whilst the other boys had excused themselves and left Reek to suffer.

And then Ramsay had bolted the doors and fucked him in the mess he'd made. That wasn't just to complete the fantasy: he finds himself increasingly incapable of directing any sort of aggression at Theon without becoming just as aroused by his vulnerability and his insatiable appetite for a good battering. It had been quite the evening.

“What about these?” Ramsay brushes his fingertips over a semicircle of small welts in a purpled swelling on Theon's forearm.

“I was late with my master's dinner.”

Ramsay tuts and chuckles. He had, in fact, warned Theon several times that he was so hungry he was liable to take a bite out of him if he didn't get his pretty arse out of Ramsay's bed and go fetch them food. Perhaps Theon had been expecting more of a teasing nibble and that was why he'd simply rolled over and wriggled that arse back into Ramsay's lap, but he'd still responded with that beautiful open-throated cry of pain that ebbed into a moan when Ramsay made good on that promise with his teeth, and neither of them had ended up leaving the bed until night fell, as it turned out, and supper be hanged. It was genuinely fortunate that nobody ever dared come to investigate what in the world the Bastard of the Dreadfort was doing on the occasions he was shut away in his rooms all day, because they just assumed it was something grisly. They were usually half right.  


“And this?” His fingertips press, a little harder than needs be, into a mottled black bruise on the outside of Theon's thigh. Almost an exact imprint of the toe of his boot.

“Too slow.”

He pulls him to half-straddle his lap, and kisses his cheek, which is fading through green into yellow. “This one?”

“That's... why did you hit me in the eye?”

Ramsay laughs against his open mouth, catches theons lipbetween his teeth. “You're too pretty.”

“Right you are, m'lord.”

Ramsay slaps him on the leg –  _ cheeky –  _ and pulls Theon closer by the hips, almost fully into his lap. His hands slide over his hips and along his sides to push Theon's tunic up, and Theon is waiting for the kisses on his chest, the open mouth on his nipples to make him squirm, but Ramsay's touches still suddenly on fresh lilacs and blues, like a raised sunset lighting along the bottom of Theon's ribs, and it all goes quiet.

Ramsay is not a quiet man by nature: he breathes loudly, eats loudly, moves loudly; his entire manner that of one perpetually daring someone to challenge his authority to behave the way he does. Even as a hunter he's more crashing wolf than raptor on wing, so on the rare occasion a silence attaches itself to him, it can only be described as ominous.

“This is not mine.”

Theon's chuckle in the silence is uncharacteristically nervous: he's picked up the tension in Ramsay's tone, the change in his body language.

“Well, that one's what I get for getting under people's feet in the yard. Don't be jealous. Nobody's got the swing on them that you have. I barely felt a thing.”

Ramsay is not laughing. He's drawn his hands away and is flexing one slowly, an unconscious response to dread and anger. Time drags enough for him to feel the prickle as each hair raises along the line up his back, and he savours a couple of deep breaths; the last few moments of relatively pleasant tension before he finds out something he knows he'll wish he didn't know, and his calm is ruined irreparably. It's a struggle to swallow, suddenly.

“Tell me what happened.” 

It almost doesn't matter. The heat of fury is already spreading through Ramsay's chest and it's always a fresh shock to him how close to pleasure that is: it's excitement, of a sort, he supposes; arousal, but he'd do anything not to have it. It's only a whisper of how he knows it will hit him when reality dawns and it's already unbearable. He'll kill to make it go away.

“Ah, one of the soldiers fell whilst he was mounting, blamed the tack, and he thought I'd saddled the horse... or else I was just the closest person who didn't look like putting up a fight, so he took the stirrup to me. Only the strap, not the iron.” Theon hesitates, looking a little unsure and then plunges into the detail that's going to come out eventually, in grainy, dark relief as the blood clots under the skin. He pulls his tunic further up to show broad splotches of black spreading up over his ribcage, smooth stripes of livid red cutting across his back, one distinct, raised scarlet square indented with dark brown angles. Corners.  “It did catch me just there. Winded me for a good long while, scared him enough to leave off but the stablemaster - what's his face, Ostler?”  Ramsay has no answer.  “- didn't think the bones were broken and I'm breathing just fine now. I was a bit addled. I nearly told him It was alright, that you'd salve the bruises for me.”   


Ramsay has stopped hearing him. 

The idea that somebody might dangerously injure Theon is so huge as to be incomprehensible other than by a sudden hot tingling sensation and a flex, a hollowness at the bottom of his throat as though he might vomit. But he quells that, shuts it away, and deals instead with the more manageable outrage: that someone might risk mortally wounding Reek. That they'd even lay their hands on him when they should be well aware that he is Ramsay's and Ramsay's only to mistreat or pet or train as he sees fit, which is plenty enough trespass to warrant the same end. A messy end, brutal and probably disappointingly quick because the crucial thing is that it must be seen and the point made that as tormented as they think Reek is, as much glee as they believe Ramsay derives from his suffering, not one soul may lay a finger on him without Ramsay's express permission. Much less a stirrup. Gods, it could have smashed straight through his ribs and speared his lungs on the shards of bone, and Ramsay has heard the noise a man rattles out whilst his life seeps out of those holes first hand. It could have pulverised his insides so he pissed blood, and there'd be nothing to do for it but watch helplessly for days whilst he shriveled and died of the wounds under the skin...

Ramsay's throat clenches against bile and hot tears that will never make it to his eyes. His hands seize, empty, for knives. He is a Bolton, to the core despite his low birth, and he does not respond to a slight by weeping and fretting about his chambers like a jilted maid: his heart is a flint block for the sharpening. His blades are a hunting pack waiting to do his bidding. The actual hunting pack won't be needed today: he doesn't doubt he's capable of killing with his own teeth if needs must.

_ Remove the threat. Secure the prize _ . Make himself feel better, and make damned sure nobody crosses him for a good, long time. Theon is safe, and he can make an example of the fetid whore's cunt who touched him, render him a moot issue, let off some of this steam and make a very public point of claiming Theon as his property all at once. These are things he can do. Things he will enjoy doing. Things Theon will enjoy knowing he's done for him, if he gets it right, if he doesn't lose his temper and get carried away making someone – anyone – pay for every hurt currently assaulting his mind and nerves, with their flesh.

He fights the red pounding behind his eyes. He can feel his jaw tensing, the set of his teeth grinding with the effort to keep control, and it aches; his nostrils flare and he has to concentrate to breathe steadily, to calm himself whilst he watches Theon worrying at the frayed edge of his tunic with his hands. Ramsay knows he's scaring him. Beyond the fierceness Theon's always found so appealing on him is a depth of cold brutality that even he cringes at, and Theon knows the kinds of things that trigger it, and he's usually uncomfortable with reality of the carnage that ensues.

“I'm sorry Ram. It was my own fault, I-”

“Shush.”

Ramsay has heard enough. This man beat Theon, and here Theon is, grovelling like a maid defending her virtue to a suitor. Because someone else laid their hands on him, in front of half the fucking keep. Aas if he had right to Ramsay's property, as if Ramsay's claims mean nothing. The fact Theon is hurt is one thing - and thank the gods old and new, Ramsay knows enough about bodily trauma to know there's nothing fatal or even enduring about the wounds, as close as they may have come to real damage, and it must have been more by luck than judgement -  But if there's one thing he cannot abide, it's being undermined: not by anyone; not with his father scrutinising his every move, questioning his methods and his ability to command as though greying hair and being born in wedlock are prerequsites to being feared and respected.

“Who.”

Theon knows, at this point, that the next word out of his mouth amounts to a death sentence – the fact he'd not volunteered the story until it became unavoidable vouches that he was aware of its seriousness, and Ramsay will deal with that another time - but in reality that's what picking up that stirrup had been, and he does at least have the sense not to try to protect the man nor argue the toss over Ramsay's right to exert whatever justice he's brewing. Maybe he is excited, after all: there's always been an attraction in him to Ramsay's wildness, and he can't feel it's unwarranted this time. Perhaps he's more scared and shaken than he admits and, beyond his immediate guilt, actually wants that justice done. To be safe. 

“Galan.”

Ramsay kisses him on the temple, before tucking his hair back and out of the way of his lips. “Thank you. Good boy. I'm not angry with you.” He can't and won't pretend he isn't furious, but Theon needs to know it isn't his fault before this goes any further. “I don't like people thinking they can touch you.”

“He didn't...  _ touch _ me, Ram...”

That hadn't even occurred to him, and the thought makes his blood come to an instant boil.

Because If people think they have free reign to beat Reek because his master does, what would be to stop them engaging in any of the other degradations they think must be a part of his everyday life? And Theon's assurance is enough, but what if he had? Bile rises at the base of Ramsay’s throat.

Even if he didn't see it through with any sort of attempt on Theon's body, did Galan enjoy the beating the way Ramsay does? Ramsay knows even men who aren't... like him... will think about fucking more or less anything they can assert power over, and Theon is so pretty, with his seafoam eyes and his delicate, almost maidenly cheekbones; the lines of this throat, marred as he is by Ramsay's marks... It takes Ramsay's breath away sometimes, how much he wants him. Not just for what he can get out of him, not just because he so willingly indulges Ramsay's particularities but because he's witty and earnest and beautiful and  _ his.  _ Not the keep's, not his lord father's, certainly not fucking Galan's... Ramsay can barely recall who the man is but he knows he'll sniff him out. And it will be worse, for a while, because once he knows his face he'll be able to imagine him pleasuring himself to the sound of Theon's helpless crying, or what it would look like if he had got his hands on him, if Theon had  _ let _ him...

Blood thunders in his ears, pounds in his fingertips. His head aches with the strain of keeping control, of not smashing a Fist or the dagger in his belt through the nearest surface, into a wall,into his own skull, into the first person he crosses who isn't Theon… his anger, his very nature, is wildfire under the sheet ice of his composure and it makes for a very unfortable sensation. Like he's about to burst from his human skin and become whatever razor clawed beast everyone’s always known he is underneath.

Some poisonous part of him wants to ask Theon if he enjoyed it, if the pain made his body thrill the way he knows it can; if taking this punishment in the yard for all to see made him feel small and helpless in the way Ramsay knows makes his cock hard, but that's just absurd. Because it's so much worse, somehow, if it did, and that isn't Theon's fault but he'd bear the brunt of if Ramsay heard it now, when it's Galan who deserves the force of his fury; Galan who took it upon himself to discipline Ramsay's own boy, to cuckold Ramsay so in front of gods only knew who; Galan whose marks Ramsay will be looking at long after the man is dead and dismantled, but he thinks it will ramnkle him less then. He hopes so, because it's making the inside of his mouth itch with panic. He can soothe those marks, tend to them so they disappear quickly and without trace whilst his own stand vivid. His own marks on which he is now firmly decided, checking the knives in his belt with one quick glance of his hands. He knows what he needs to do.

It had been suggested incidentally once, and in the heat of passion the idea of being viscerally and publicly hallmarked for Ramsay's possession had tipped Theon over the edge into fast and blinding orgasm, which had been the intent, and Ramsay hadn't really meant to chase it further until Theon had pressed it. Begged him to really do it, to parade him out in the court or the hall and brand him, that it would be worth any amount of pain for Ramsay to show ownership of him like that, in front of everyone… 

_ “Any amount of pain? Because branding isn't really what I'm known for…” _

Then it had been discussed, properly and with the weight it necessitated, because this would  _ hurt,  _ and not be a game that could be stopped, when it happened: It would be as public as he could make it, and probably without warning, and Theon would have no choice but to ride it out – and that was what he had agreed to, there and then. Enthusiastically, asking for it to be soon, fascinated by the idea of withstanding that sort of pain, healing the damage, the processed Ramsay told him all about for healing him safely; the heat in his voice. He'd begged. 

So it isn't essential that Theon understands what the “ _ are you ready? _ ” is referring to as Ramsay pulls his clothes back into place around him and manhandles him out of the doors by the neck of his tunic and down the steps, but the surprised, enthusiastic “ _ yes, please yes"  _ is a comfort nonetheless

The morning's howling blizzard has given over to an earliy silent afternoon, cold and bright, and Ramsay despises it instantly. He wants lightning for his fury to blaze against, hail to beat back the madness under his skin. 

Outside the blacksmith’s open shopfront, he flings Theon towards two guards who snap to attention just in time to catch him around the arms before he falls into the churned and muddy snow. 

“Hold him.” They do not move, propping Reek up quite simply around the shoulders and the waist. “By the arms, you dolts, over that.” Ramsay strides over, and the guards seem to suddenly realise the gravity of their situation and kick into action, albeit still ineffectually, grappling with Reek as he struggles. “My father has leeches with more sense than the pair of you. Hold him  _ down _ !”

He's still not convinced they've understood but as soon as one grabs Theon's wrists, Theon pulls himself backwards as if he means to try to twist away and ends up conveniently bent double over the bench exactly where Ramsay wanted him, the other guard grabbing a hold on his arms and a helpful passer-by stepping forward to rope his legs to the struts of the bench until Ramsay strides over and it becomes evident that he's not going to try to move anymore. Too late. Everybody knows Reek is far too scared of Ramsay to put up any resistance.

“Get that shirt off him.”

A cheap thrill for Theon, a little extra texture to his experience: being manhandled, mistreated, potentially ravaged by the guard has always been one of his simplest fantasies and it's the closest Ramsay is ever going to allow them to get, but they're quick enough on that mark, ripping the worn fabric straight from his skin and dropping it onto the bench. It's thick linen, it doesn't tear easily and Theon will have a bruise on his chest from the pull of it to splitting point that he's going to shudder every time Ramsay reminds him about  _ that huge black welt where the soldiers ripped your clothes off you _ , if he's true to form.

Ramsay picks up a wooden pail that's collecting snow melt as it drops from the slate and throws the contents over Theon, soaking him head to knee in the freezing water. The sudden physicality pulls the stopper from his control, and he suppresses the urge to smash the bucket to splinters on the nearest wall; to rip someone's throat out with nothing but his fingernails. Left to come naturally, his anger is the destructive force of a flood, a river bursting its banks, or else like a white hot poker through silk, but that is not his way these days… He’s learning, and his rage is a precise and terrifying art form and this is the skill in it, this is his birth right: the control, the ability to draw that fury out, hold the draw and aim it so carefully, like an arrow to the heart. 

Ramsay slows himself to a simmer, breathes, and lets his face twist into a hungry grin for the growing crowd. Come one, come all: The young lord Bolton is up to one of his games. 

He pushes Theon down by the neck – ignoring the shudder nobody else will notice, but he's pleased to feel against his legs - and gestures to the guard to adjust their grips to keep him there. As he'd hoped, plenty of morbidly fascinated onlookers have gathered for whatever spectacle is unfolding and amongst them Ramsay can make out the usual faces... Vargo, Ben, the twins, old Toland... Galan. He remembers the man's face on sight, all the better for immediately imagining it twisting up in anguish as he slices him arse to root and let his balls drop out so that he can ram them down his neck. 

It also means he can picture him holding Theon by the throat, with a knife against the helpless skin of his belly as he takes him, and Theon struggling back in a way he might not be able to help enjoying. He sees this man's blandly imperious face splintering in on itself in a font of black blood and glistening red under Ramsay's fist until he pummels through to the heather grey that turns to sludge underneath. He will take a torch and melt the man's eyeballs from his head while he lives. He will see how many of their own body parts it is possible to feed someone and have them conscious enough to chew and swallow ‘voluntarily’ - he's always wondered. He will flay the skin from between his toes and bind his feet into hooves to walk behind Ramsay's horse until they reach the the old farmhouse where Ramsay keeps his special projects, and keep him alive whilst he works out what he has to do to make this infernal fucking agony in his head go away.

He will not do any of these things. Ramsay will do exactly what he set out to do.

Theon twists and shakes underneath him. There's enough shelter and warmth from the dwindling furnaces To assuage any concern about exposure but Ramsay presses closer anyway. He calls to Alyn, projecting his voice. The show is about to begin.

“Alyn, good man. Hand me your knife, will you?”

And he does so, promptly, handle first over his forearm as if presenting a sword. Ramsay accepts it politely, with a nod, and raises it with a flourish. Somewhere under his other hand, Theon is quivering. He's going to be responding beautifully to having an audience for this sort of thing and to the introduction of a knife he can't even see, and Ramsay hopes that's enough to sustain his interest because this is going to hurt.

“How do I know this is your knife?” He projects his voice even though maintaining his usual dauntingly good-humoured tone is a struggle.

“I... I just gave it to you, m'lord?”

Ramsay rolls his eyes elaborately, it actually makes his head ache a bit. Gods, he is surrounded by morons. He does not need to ask again for Alyn to realise he's not given the expected answer, and volunteer another one. He also enunciates clearly, well aware that Ramsay is counting on this exchange being listened to and remembered.

“It's got my letters on it?” It does, indeedm although they're not particularly clear: an A and what was presumably once an S worn almost flush with the handle, which Ramsay squints at before dismissing the blade itself with a quick, disparraging glance.  


“Thank you. Now have it back, it's a disgrace. Blunt knives are for butter and for peeling Starks and I've seen precious little of either this winter.” 

He draws a dagger up from one of the scabbards in his belt via a lazy twirl, dark wood and silver steel swishing in a wide, careless loop - and makes a show of admiring it's razor edge, squinting at it in the dwindling afternoon sunlight before holding it out for the nearest witness to inspect, as if there’s any chance at all that they’d disagree with him.

“This is a properly sharpened knife. Look at the bevel on it. It looks shallow, but the point's fine enough to split a hair lengthways.”

He pulls Theon's soaked trousers down one-handed so that his rough-hewn belt bisects the meat of his arse and Ramsay is instantly furious again because he can't grab a handful of it, jiggle it, slap it like he ordinarily would any time it's exposed to him, but he just lets that stoke the fire. How  _ dare _ they rob him of that simple joy? He grips Theon's hipbone with his free hand, confident that it will appear necessary for leverage, and nobody will notice the gentle stroke of his fingertips as the only comfort he can give, that scant intimate connection to remind Theon that this is for him too.

“You did a wonderful job of sharpening this for me, Reek. You'll be glad of that. A dull knife takes much longer, as you well know. You’re learning  _ so _ quickly.”  The cringe from the few people close enough to bear full witness to both Ramsay’s cloying tone and his gleeful, almost demented leer at his prone victim is almost audible.

“See?” He turns back to the onlookers, pleased not to spot any of his father's closest cronies, and swoops the knife past the nearest few, close enough for them to admire. 

“He'll barely feel this.” He makes sure his eyes and his smile tell that for the lie it is, even tips someone an amused wink before he chooses his mark quickly, with a practiced eye and no hesitation in which to doubt himself.

With the tip pointing into the flesh a handspan above the curve of Theon's left arse cheek, Ramsay composes himself. He presses on the knife until it pierces through the skin, watches the tip sink in and down until it touches the tension of the muscle underneath and then pulls it downwards, cutting a clean, straight line, and Theon howls. He wants to fuss at him, or tease him, but he can't, and he's so caught in his own desperation that he's already making mistakes, and he can’t afford that. 

Ramsay withdraws and pauses, holding the handle of the knife between his teeth whilst he tears he shirt he’d had pulled from Theon's back into four wide, uneven strips and by the time he returns to make his second cut Theon is gibbering, writhing in his hold, playing to the audience.

It's just a score. The crying is definitely an extravagance: he takes worse than this all the time. This is the sort of pain he likes, well within his comfort limits, and with all eyes on him taking it he'll definitely be hard inside his breeches, but Ramsay likes it when he doesn't try to keep stoic through the suffering, when he gives in and really feels it rather than blocking it out to see how much he can take. There's something about the sound of him sniveling that makes Ramsay’s cock ache, and for a while that tormented him but it’s not as though he could ever help it, and now he knows what it does to Theon he's stopped questioning it. His anger returns as an interesting prickle under the skin: a friendlier beast altogether now that it's being fed.  


The yard falls still, those who clamoured close when the scene began to unfold now uncomfortably silent so Ramsay only has Theon's whining to concentrate through in order to make short, precise work of slicing a double-lined 'R' into his skin. Despite the noise Theon is coping well: Ramsay can tell by the softness of his pose, the steady rise and fall of his back as he breathes so deliberately from the upper chest so as not to disturb Ramsay's work.  _ Good boy _ . He'd hurt him worse than this often at the beginning, when he'd been going for sheer brute force and damage, before he'd learned the types of pain that were a shortcut to those dark places that set Theon alight from the inside, the ideas and stories that worked him into it, the right measures of shame and visible wounding and hungry possession to make him really want it, so he knows he can stand this. He may even actually like it: his fondness for public scene staging notwithstanding, Theon has extolled both his joy of a broad sting from something like flogging and his love-hate passion for deep cuts. Where this will fit on his register of sensations remains to be discussed, but Ramsay knows just the promise of the marks will be enough for him to bear this with his usual single minded tenacity, and he can tell him just how much he admires that later whilst he sets this right.   


Ramsay mops the blood running from the slits in the skin with the rolled linen and moves across to the mirroring position on the back of Theon's right hip, tapping the skin quickly to warn him where the pain will come before he puts the knife to him, and Theon whispers  _ 'please'  _ as though he's asking for mercy, when they both know better.

And that's what Ramsay needs, more than any of the rest of it. He can hurt people whenever he wants and it's not always just a means to an end, he won't deny he enjoys it, but it's that willingness, the wanting it that turns it from amusement into this all-consuming need. Ramsay had thought once that he'd grow to be like his father: cold and dispassionate, not even drawing any joy from his own cruelty, but there aren't enough leeches in the seven damned kingdoms to suck out the fire violence puts in Ramsay's veins. There never had been. He's only ever had a vague interest in people themselves outside of that context: girls, boys, he had no particular preference for anything other than the pulse of that ultimate power, the bliss that radiates out from the small of his back and takes so long to reach his head that he can usually finish a nice neat job of whatever mutilation he's fixed on before he even becomes aware of it, let alone loses control... but that hardly tallies with mutual affection unless someone he fancied the look of also happened to be one of those rare, twisted people who thrived not just on a half slap and a grab but on blood and bruises; on knives and split lips and brute force. Which is why he's careful,  _ so careful  _ about how he hurts Theon. He won't let his own lack of restraint jeopardise what he has, not again, and he'll be fucked bloody with a polearm before he lets someone else put that at risk.

Rage surges through him, bubbling up again where the concentration and the smell of fresh blood had soothed him.  He glances about, almost as if looking for applause whilst he checks that Galan is still there, which he is, and that's for the best. He'd have him found, grabbed and brought back for the conclusion of this if he has to, for that matter he'd hunt him on horseback to the edge of the fucking world if he had to, but it's far better if he doesn't see it coming…  if he's lingering of his own accord, perhaps growing nervous or even smirking to himself at having got one up on the lord's bastard, if he hasn't yet noticed how conspicuously prominent his own bruises are in this display. Let him look.

The short stroke of Ramsay’s fingertips against Theon's hip is to prepare him for the last part. The worst part. And if Theon is going to withstand this pain for him, he's going to be able to savour every second of his fantasy in retrospect, so Ramsay must get the details right. Must focus completely on them, on making this perfect enough that Theon will forgive him for how much it hurts, and on cherishing every second for himself, because it will be the only time it's done.  _ Patience. _

In a few short strides he's around the bench, and he lays the dagger he's used on top of the dripping red mess of what was once part of Theon's shirt, in his line of sight on the bench. Their eyes meet for just a second and the look Ramsay sees there reassures him: Theon's eyes are wild. He's loving the melodrama and the act even though the pain is real, the tears are real.   


Ramsay makes an elaborate show of cleaning and sheathing that knife before unfolding the slim roll from the back of his belt. Examining each one, thoroughly and theatrically as if giving unnecessary consideration to what he might need for the task gives him time to listen to Theon’s breathing for signs of shock and find none, to give him a few moments’ pause to compose his nerves but not so long that the flush of heady bravery brought on by the pain he’s already endured starts to leave him and if possible catch him right at the summit of that hunger for the thrill of it. May the gods love Theon, he’s the only person Ramsay’s ever known to come to this point and want  _ more _ .

So he holds the knife he so painstakingly but obviously selected out and forwards, in front of Theon's face as he strides back to his original position,  so he and everyone else can see it gleaming with the reflection of an early oil light: the flat curve; the nick before the hook of the tip; the flashing steel and yellowed bone handle. Ramsay's famous flaying knife.

Theon responds with a drawn out whine. He doesn't really have much choice: he can't very well give any of the normal reassurances that he can proceed, that he's enjoying his fear and pain... but he's not tapping his heel or clenching his hands, not making any attempt towards any of the signals that Ramsay is dreading because at this point he can't think how he'd back down, and it might just break his heart to do something Theon really doesn't want him to. It isn't his fault, after all, but Ramsay is furious and he has a point to make. He settles back behind him, with his knees resting against the back of Theon’s legs, and he can feel them shaking.

Theon would deal with this.  The crucial thing is to get the scars right, clean and even and beautiful, and that's something Ramsay knows he can do so he focuses, tunes out from Theon's senseless wailing with a final stroke to his hip and tucks the curved lip of the knife afore of the hook under the tail of the R, wiggling it flat under the top layer of skin.

The grooves he'd cut are as helpful as he'd hoped: the skin he needs to strip away is less than the width of his pinkie finger and far too slim otherwise for the broad, flat surface of the flaying knife, but there's still no better tool for the job.

Ramsay taps a count on Theon's hip – _ three, two, one _ – and pulls upwards at an angle, slicing the blade under the skin and lifting it to part the layers of flesh as quickly and cleanly as he can. Anyone who'd seen him use that knife otherwise will know that's not a courtesy he usually stops for, if they even recognise it for the mercy that it is. There’s as sound, so close and absorbing that for a moment Ramsay thinks he can hear the flesh itself giving way, like the shuddering hiss of soaked parchment being torn apart, and then he realises that noise is Theon, and the ice in his stomach shatters. The sound climbs slowly, beautifully, to something between a whine and a hum, almost disbelieving, before it breaks into a real cry. 

Ramsay has heard this pain described in thousands of words, in curses and prayers, in pleas for death or mercy as if they aren’t one and the same by then, but never anything as intimate as that single note of agony.

Someone gasps and is quickly silenced; Ramsay's eyes fix on the newly exposed red, glistening in its neat trenches in Theon's pale skin. He has to lick his bottom lip to stop it dripping, his mouth is so slack with focus. The flesh he’s uncovered is bright and shining and perfect, not least because he’s the first to ever see it and so quickly it will be scabs and then scars but for now that vivid hot-poker red is all his, all for him.

Between strips of skin, he channels the other, less enjoyable ache Theon's wailing creates in him into a stare that meets a few faces in the crowd and fixes on Galan.  _ You made me do this. You made me hurt him. _ His eyes flick to lock with anyone else who dares meet his eye, a wordless and obvious threat, but with the usual cast of humour, like he's enjoying himself, because he is. Skinning is a craft, and he's proud to do a good job that Theon will be able to enjoy for the rest of his life.

The trick is to find the natural slippage: the layer where the blood runs freely and the bond of the skin to itself is so much stronger than the bond holding it down to the flesh below, so it just asks to be torn away, pulled up and peeled back until it reaches a natural weakness, or in this case meets the line Ramsay has cut as a boundary. The straight lines pull away clean. In the curves, a quick, shallow wiggle of the knife under the edge helps to widen the cut so that the skin in the middle loosens and strips off more easily, and after a few short moments that Ramsay knows will have felt like an eternity to Theon but aren't nearly enough for him, the whole letter comes away. He thinks for a moment about keeping it to do something with later, but he should have prepared better if he wanted to be able to spend time on trivialities like that: Theon needs him to focus.

Ramsay blots the blood with the clean inside of the linen, examining the lines. Better to make any corrections now than once it's all calmed down.

“Good boy. One more.”

It doesn't matter who heard the endearment; Theon _ is _ being good, Reek is being ever such a well behaved, obedient pet to hold still and only scream the castle half down whilst his master cuts chunks out of his skin, not to beg him to stop for he knows that is futile, not to chase mercy or fight; just to cry and bleed and cope. Ramsay's seen far 'greater' men do less.

The loops of the ‘B’ are a struggle to get away evenly. Ramsay’s  hands are sweating now, and he's flayed entire human being in one unbroken pelt without being a fraction as absorbed as he is in this few inches of Theon's skin, or in the blood running down it. 

The blood is Ramsay’s real weakness, and for a moment he’s lost in how quickly it pulses to the surface and runs, how it thickens on the skin in the cold air before he can bring the linen strip to wipe it away.  With anyone else he'd help himself to his fill, but Theon’s is all the sweeter for the fact he can never let himself have as much as he'd want. Never any more than a flash flood that he must stem as quickly as he can, just a tease at all the life underneath his hands. He can't paint and bathe himself in it, can’t let it flow out to feel its silky warmth trickling between his fingers: it’s precious and he tries to savour every glimpse or taste of it and to make sure every drop he spills is spent on their pleasure. It's not to be wasted. Never to be risked. 

Still, this is the most of it he's seen in a while, and he can hear his own breathing as he carefully dabs up to the edges of his new marks before sliding his knife back into the skin, his lip occasionally and involuntarily twitching up towards a snarl.

It's exactly as it always is: Ramsay only really begins to notice how hot his blood is running once the job is almost done. There's a pleasant liquid sensation in his joints that he knows will become shaking as soon as he allows it to, that will make him feel weightless for hours.  There’s a prickling, powerful, nerdy sort of heat pooling right at the bottom of his belly, warming the base of his spine,making his cock throb, filling him with strength and urgency and  _ want.  _ Once he's sated that, Ramsay knows he’ll sleep like a pampered babe, easier for having Theon pillowed in the crook of his arm where anything amiss would be sure to wake him.

He knows what he looks like, too: he's heard the hushed, startled descriptions of himself in these sorts of moments echoed back. He's caught his reflection later and seen a monster, his skin pale and his eyes black, hair swept back and stuck there with blood and his own sweat. He's heard Theon describe the same beast, his voice all lust and hunger – the fierce control, the power - and at the very least he can give him that tonight, and there’ll be not the slightest shade of performance to it.

Ramsay keeps an eye flitting to Galan's location whilst he mops at the wounds and checks the details again, washes them down with more clean, freezing water and mops the fresh blood away again.

Satisfied with his work, Ramsay turns and flings the knife, hard and decisively, through a gap in the sparse crowd. His aim's better than he'd have wagered on it being with his hands shaking so, now he can allow them to: it sails through the air and buries itself firmly, inexorably in Galan's eye socket.

With only his customary grin at such a fortunate shot, Ramsay ducks under Theon's chest, hefts his weight across his shoulders and lifts him, ignoring the chaos around the twitching about-to-be corpse of Galan as he carries him back to his chambers, blood leaving a trail of wide flat drips up the stairs.

“Leave him,” he calls back to the onlookers gathering like flies around the body. “He's mine.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the thing. Almost the entirety of this fic was actually written right at the beginning of this year, just needed some tarting up and when I posted the first chapter I was close to as finished with it as I could be bothered to be. And then I decided the second half didn't quite deliver what I wanted it to and procrastinated about touching it at all for quite a while. And then, on the way back from a weekend away with my girl I got stuck in some godsforsaken fuckhole called Martins Heron and rewrote the majority of this chapter sitting on my suitcase looking surly at pigeons. 
> 
> This is also probably the easiest to confuse with canon if you're not paying attention, so if you haven't read the rest or the notes on the AU please do! All is not as it may appear if you're just dropping in.

In his chambers, Ramsay pours their goblet full of wine before putting the rest over the fire to boil, and hands it to Theon, who he's sat on the edge of a wooden chest, dripping gore, white and shaking but sustaining an admirable, dazed half smile of reassurance.

“Drink.”

“I can't, Ram, I'll be sick.”

“You won't and if you are I'll help you. And it wasn't a question. Drink.”

There’s no special cause for worry. Theon always feels nauseous when the pain's a bit much for him, and it soon ebbs when he calms down. Ramsay stands next to him and guides the cup up towards his lips but doesn't force him, pulling Theon's head to his chest and kissing his hair. “No more pain now. “A closed noise from Theon that calls out  the lie in that, because he knows what's coming. “You just need to let me clean you up. You were incredible.”

Theon whines - earnestly, he's in agony rather than putting on a show for sympathy and soft treatment, Ramsay knows him that well - but obediently, stiffly stands and makes his way to the end of the bench at the foot of the bed. He kneels whilst Ramsay moves Theon’s old belt, no longer worn but as always strapped around the bedstead, to within his reach so that he can twist it in his hands, pull against it, if that will help him ground himself against the pain. Ramsay supports his weight to lay him softly into position and props him there with a thin cushion between Theon's belly and the wood. He's shivering, and Ramsay takes a moment to soothe him by stroking his hands over Theon's arms, warming him for the moment he has to step away, breathing deep and steady for both of them.

Whilst Theon adjusts for comfort, shifting about to find how he can breathe most easily with most of his weight on his chest, Ramsay piles wood onto the fire and washes the blood from his hands in the basin by the window, momentarily confused by a stubborn stain in a curve across his palm until he realises he's cut himself in the fray. No, not cut himself – as if he'd ever. It's the imprint of his nails dug right through his palm, the skin split in four perfect bruising crescents. Careless. He’ll have to wrap those under his gloves tomorrow.

When he returns with the kettle of wine, the sight of Theon takes his breath away. It twists at his guts to be so drawn to Theon's suffering on the scarce occasions when absolutely none of it is an act, but he makes quite the picture bent over that bench, his whole form flexing in stoic agony, not bound but holding himself in the pose ready for whatever is next. It's beautiful. The warm torchlight and stuttering golden blaze from the fire shows up the broad arcs of rust red streaks where wiping the blood away had smeared it into his skin; Ramsay's entire body throbs with need.

Theon's flawless obedience is a temptation and a test all at once. He hasn't earned him until he's finished the job, however sure Ramsay is that his silent compliance means he's lost under the bliss he finds in pain and subjugation with no interest in fighting his way back to the surface. Care must come first.

Kneeling down by Theon's knees, Ramsay sets the kettle, clean cloth and box of supplies down in a neat square beside him. His left hand goes to play softly in the wet curls at the back of Theon's neck whilst the right pulls Theon's belt fully loose so that his trousers drop as far as they can; he can step out of them when he stands.

It's only then Ramsay notices quite how much gore they've soaked up. He might keep them that way, stained and brittle: Theon will want to see, and he'll enjoy others being reminded of what he did today. What was done to him.

Ramsay takes his time dabbing boiled and still near-boiling wine into the channels he's cut, drenching the raw red flesh in between, admiring the straight edges. Softly, just pressing with the cloth and rolling it a fraction before lifting it away, each touch soaking off a little more mess and wiping the sore skin clean. He doesn’t mind if his proximity gives his body’s desires away: It'd be as senseless as futile to pretend he's not aroused by this, when he knows that's such a big part of what Theon gets out of it, and he deserves every drop of satisfaction they can wring out. He’s been so good.

On one squeeze of the cloth Theon seethes and pulls on the loop of the belt, but Ramsay is prepared to distract him from the worst of it. Not with comfort in its truest sense but by getting his hooks right into the meat of why Theon does it all, why he loves to be hurt and humiliated and moreso if it's for the sake of proving how entirely, helplessly Ramsay's he is.

Ramsay presses his lips to the dents in the small of Theon's back, tasting the savoury tang of wine boiled sour more than the blood but that's there too. It's intoxicating. He allows himself a slow, flat lick, breathing heavy against Theon's skin, relishing the taste and the urgent shift below him that tells him Theon's revelling in how much Ramsay wants this. He understands just what it all does to him, and he courts it.

“You were so good. And I've done a beautiful job, Theon. Do you want to hear about it?”

Theon moans his assent. Ramsay suspected as much:  that he's still hurting but he's warm now and the pain of having the wounds cleaned is right within his bracket, the consuming, unbearably raw sting replaced with something deeper, lower on the register. Besides that, he's had enough close contact now to know that he's brought about that desperate, deafening hunger in Ramsay: that his breathy quiet now is the eye of the storm between his violent rage and the inevitable painful passion of its conclusion. Theon had described it as like the whistle before the whip, the herald of impending impact that sends that same  scorching flinch of excitement through his body, and he wants it just as much.

“The letters are perfect. Exactly the same size, this big.” Ramsay reaches forward to hold out an approximation in Theon's line of sight: the distance of a span of his relaxed hand. “Neat and straight, the same width all the way down. You look like a carving, Theon, honestly, your skin is so pale, like marble. It looks so pretty. All light pink now I’ve dried it, but there was _so much blood_.” He sighs, caught in his own description, finding not a word to be an exaggeration, “And now you have my letters on you, right where I like to... oh.” That chuckle is low, measured. “I'm going to have to be careful where I hold you when I take you for a while.”

Theon writhes and Ramsay knows he has him then, that it's alright. Satisfied, He presses a clean, dry square of linen from the box over each letter and tacks its edges down with a thick balm from a jar -  beeswax thinned with tallow to make it sticky even whilst cool, although the room is warming steadily.  A broad calico bandage is folded and placed in top and then secure with another that he winds around theon’s waist, Theon curling his back and sucking in his stomach to allow Ramsay’s hands room under him, twice around and then he tears slim tabs into the end of the cloth to knot together to secure it around him, snug and neat. If Ramsay happens to run his fingertips over the bruises he's made on Theon's hips, to brush the backs of his hands against Theon's peaked-stiff nipples whilst he fusses around him, the better: he can just light with anticipation whilst theon shudders with need, hiding it under cool patience that he knows does nothing but make Theon hunger for the moment he loses control. _Not yet._

“They're beautiful, Thee. And you looked beautiful... so obedient, bent over and not even fighting it. Just letting me mark you as mine for them all to see. Did you see them looking?”

Theon whimpers a response but that's certainly not pain, so Ramsay pulls him up gently against his chest to keep whispering into his ear; slides a hand down his chest to rub at Theon's crotch and finds him perfectly, searingly hard, leaking like he's been that way the whole time. _Oh, my beautiful boy._ It was unlikely, he usually wavered at the peak of pain even when he loved it, but the lure of shocking the masses with their deviance was bound to be enough to reel him back in quickly and Ramsay's hand closes slick around hot steel, his voice low right into the shell of Theon's ear.

“They're all going to have gone back to their homes and their wives and their dinners and their duties thinking about the way I was holding you down, you know.” He wants to encourage that heat: not to soothe the pain but to drown it in desperation; to fan the sparks back into a roaring flame. Theon murmurs softly and lets his head fall back onto Ramsay's shoulder. His words are inaudible, if he attempted to form any, but his posture is clear. _More._

“I heard someone say once that I had a workbench up here with shackles at the legs to spread you over.” A twitch against the palm of Ramsay’s hand tells him he's headed in the right direction. “Do you think they'll think I have you in that now, or that you've passed out cold and I've just tossed you onto my bed? Or over a chair back, like wet laundry?”

Theon moans outright, his cock pulsing eagerly. Ramsay gives it a few long, steady strokes for encouragement, leans in impossibly closer, lips coming to touch Theon's jaw before his ear, threatening with teeth. “Or perhaps they understand now that you're _such a good boy_ that you'd never say no to me, no matter what I was doing to you... whether I was cutting you up, or beating and throttling you, or reaming your pretty arse…” A gentle bite cuts through the predictable moan that draws. “Do you want that? Will you let me make you feel better?”

A soft but earnest whimper. “No...”

Theon's voice is so heavy with breath Ramsay barely hears it and even then he doesn't understand. He's not expecting a ‘no’ now, not even a pretend one. Theon is rock hard but otherwise warm butter in his hands. He wants it, Ramsay can see he wants it, _why is he turning it down?_ Another flash flood of fear, because if he's been wrong throughout this whole encounter -

“Don't make me feel good.” Theon's voice is strained, hoarse from screaming but more confident than Ramsay had expected, twisted with pure want. “I'm not _letting_ you have me. You own me. Take me like they're thinking you are right now.” A little quieter, almost defiant: an important promise.  “I can take it.”

An involuntary whine of need and relief that Ramsay presumes came from Theon for a moment before he realises the truth. This is what he needs. Of course he'd have tried to temper the sheer raging fire in him into softer passions if that was what Theon needed - he owed him whatever he wished for now -  but he couldn't have been entirely confident about it: with all the will in the world he might not have been as gentle as he wanted to be, not like this, with his pulse still hammering under his skin, his blood so hot it itches as though it wants him to peel his own skin back and let it flood out to join Theon's on his floor.

When he pulls Theon to standing, the blood-soaked breeches drop off him to the floor and he gasps loudly, though whether it’s pain from the sudden movement or something warmer at the feeling of Ramsay’s lips and teeth scraping a series of rough kisses across his shoulders isn’t clear to either. In one more motion Ramsay grabs Theon's hands, twists his arm up behind his back and forces him a few feet forwards and over the nearest surface, shoving into the writing desk so its wooden legs groan loudly across the stone floor and that helps somehow: it’s harsh and jarring and exactly what he needs.

Let loose, the pent up energy floods back in a rush and Ramsay sweeps the rest of the table's contents – oil lamp, books, ink and jars and pots and all – to smash on the floor just as much for the noise and the smarting in his hand as for the jolt it sends through Theon's body. It feels good. He needs more of that: the immediate, simple, gratifying violence. He picks up the only pot that's left - cleaning spirits, by the brief smell of it - and hurls it into the nearest wall, watching with warm excitement as the sound of glass on stone sends another flinch through Theon. Good, he's not lost the mood either.

Ramsay is suddenly impressed by the depth of his own composure. Where was this hiding when he was tending Theon's wounds? How did he still this trembling hunger in his hands long enough to be so soft with him? It obviously hadn't receded: it comes crashing back in like a burst dam, pouring through his veins wildfire-hot and dangerous and everything, everything he can feel, everything he can smell, everything he can taste.

He's disappointed, now, by the quick death, but it wouldn't have been fair to make Theon suffer any further for someone else's offence, and he won't now: it'll have to dwell in him until some poor witless fuck gives him an excuse to make them suffer. Still, the anger is not spent out of Ramsay, won't be for a long time, but getting his hands on Theon properly at last helps. Theon is _his_ and he never feels the truth in that quite so much as when he's deep inside him, making him shake and babble and forget everything except them, except the want and the hunger, the hold Ramsay has over him, that he gives up so willingly, because only Ramsay can make him feel this way. Only Ramsay can touch him like this. _Mine mine mine._

With two fingers, Ramsay wipes a thick stripe of grease down the crack of Theon’s arse, over his hole and twists his fingers in. It's not gentle, but enough that the first intrusion isn't the solid bluntness of his cock: as liberal as he is with the oil on that, as rough as Theon may want it he doesn't want to tear him.  it means the firstslide in is easy if excruciatingly tight, and the rhythmic squeezing as Theon consciously adjusts to him, struggling to relax, is as reassuring as ever,  but Ramsay had neither the wit nor the inclination to give him much of a chance.

Ramsay begins to rock his hips, quickly, and the need for it catches up and crashes down; he gets a good solid grip on Theon's hip bones and slams in, falling headlong into the chase. Want courses through him, indistinguishable from the anger in its heat and clawing, clawing at his insides as sharply as his own nails dig into Theon's skin. It’s on him then, crazed and uncontrollable, like a pack of slavering hounds. He doesn’t have a hope of slowing back to control and he doesn’t want one, he needs this, needs Theon to feel it for a week, needs to soothe his own nerves with that ecstatic peak and the peace that follows.

Theon's eager panting soothes any doubt that he's proceeding too fast, too hard. If nothing else he knows how wanted he is, how crazed  Ramsay is for his body and that's usually enough to see him through. It might just be hard luck if it isn't.

The exertion of force itself is a bliss. Ramsay knows he's thrusting harder than he normally would, but Theon doesn't mind at all if the noise he's making is anything to go by, and Ramsay isn't bothered if anyone hears that those cries are of pleasure: Theon obviously needs that too. They won't believe it anyway, won't spare a moment's credulity for the notion that Theon might be able to feel good now, that he might ever willingly tolerate his cruel master's touches, let alone enjoy the things Ramsay does to him. They're safe. _Theon_ is safe, mewling his enjoyment under him and Ramsay straightens up to a better angle for him, tilting his hips until Theon's dry, ragged cry tells him he's hit his mark.

As much as this fuck is nominally about what he wants, with all the trappings of being rough and careless,  he's intent on finding that sweet spot within Theon's body and nailing it on every stroke; on holding him still with the right amount of pressure to make him feel owned, taken and helpless but not to distract him from all the sensations that are taking over from the pain now. Bliss, hopefully,  that jagged, frantic high where pleasure floods into the channels of intensity dug by pain, more vivid than ever. Ramsay needs it fast and hard but he wants it to be good, he wants to be all Theon can think about. To be seared as vividly into his thoughts as into his skin, to possess him that wholly, inside and out... and that screaming is how he knows he's succeeding. But he can do better, he knows his boy well enough.

He opts for the jealousy pathway rather than the fear, sure Theon is no keener on imagining wheezing out  his last in a pool of blood on cold cobblestones than he is, and something horrid climbs up in his chest again and wraps strangling around his throat. _Don't think about. it's not him you're angry at._

He grabs him, hard, one hand fisted in the tangling damp of Theon's hair and the other still pushing Theon's wrists down in the middle of his back so that when he pulls him up he bends, his hips staying level to keep their angle and his top half wrenched uncomfortably up. Ramsay bites his ear.

“When he hurt you…”- a good hard twist to his wrist, pure spite with the nails dug in - “ did you think about how it would feel if he took you then? In front of the whole keep?”

Theon gasps a couple of times before he can answer, he knows he has to answer but his face is screwed up in tortured bliss and his whole body heaves along with the sharp surges of Ramsay’s hips, each one knocking the breath right out of him.

“No.  I promise.”  Theon wriggles as if he’s starting to struggle, away from the idea itself more than anything, and it has the delicious effect of squirming him on Ramsay’s cock and drawing simultaneous sharp noises out of both of them. Ramsay isn’t the least bit deterred.

“Not when he grabbed hold of you? Not when everyone saw him beat you bloody, you didn’t think about this? You can’t lie to me. I know how you like it.”

“ _No,_ I.. I swear it, ah -” Theon’s head tips back, stretching out his throat in a way that just begs for teeth but Ramsay can’t reach, once again can’t assert his ownership with anything but another hard roll of his hips.

“Did you forget who you belong to?”

“No. You. Always you... _Fuck_...”

Ramsay fumbles his grip from Theon's back to wrap tight around his upper body, trapping his hands between their bodies, Ramsay fingers digging into the meat of Theon's chest, nails digging a dashed frame around his nipple.

“Will you ever?”

“No, no m'lord I promise...”

“No. And neither will they. They've seen what happens now, to anyone who touches you.” Ramsay increases his grip and pulls hard on a handful of Theon's hair, ignoring the answering whine of desperation, hissing straight into his ear.  “Nobody is allowed to touch you, are they?”

Theon is gone, eyes closed and gasping. “Except you m'lord.”

“That's right. _Good_ boy.“

Theon could have just shook his head but his answer is an encouragement, almost goading, so Ramsay keeps going. He notices absently, near delirious, that Theon is canting his hips back, riding him as best he can, meeting Ramsay's rough thrusts, slightly off his pace but it’s still enough to magnify the slip of their bodies, to knock them together in a desperate rut greased with oil and sweat. Ramsay _aches_ for it.

“I can touch you whenever I want... however I want, can't I? I can do whatever I want to you. Cut you, fuck you...” He's just rambling now, finding excuses for words that will stir Theon up, and it's working. He digs his nails in, sure to leave a ring of welts. “In front of everyone, just like I held you then. Could just bend you over in the yard and have you. Do you want that?”

Theon makes a mindless noise of agreement, rocks along with the motion of Ramsay's hips and uses the distraction to wriggle his right arm from the grip and go to stroke himself. It flings oil on the flames of Ramsay's lust to see Theon want it so badly. A bead of sweat runs a fast and unbroken line down his back but he snatches Theon’s hand away and slams it down onto the table by the side of his head; holds it there, and catches the other as it drops from where it was wrenched up between them to pin down on the other side.  Theon wanted to be bent over and fucked without a care for his comfort: Ramsay's damned if he's going to let him break his own illusion now by allowing that kindness. And just perhaps he's losing himself, swept along in power and bloodlust and sheer pent up need which all seems desperate to empty itself into Theon's body, into the viciously hot grip of his arse.

He slams deep. His stomach presses into the fresh wrappings, the newly drawn blood a scent which he might just be imagining but it’s still enough, and Theon whines at that but the wounds are covered so they're safe. He can deal with a little more pain.

“No. stop moving.”  

Theon drops his weight into the desk, pressed cheek and chest to its smooth, stained surface, eyes clenched shut and mouth open to pant prayers and curses and _please_ into a spreading pool of his own spit. He wriggles in the hold, not to get away but to be able to stroke his prick again, and Ramsay feels crueler for holding him still then than he did when he cut him, but he will see this through and Theon will be patient, as he should, and he will be allowed to see to his pleasure when his lord and master is finished with him. If he wants to feel cowed and subjected whilst Ramsay uses his body to hunt down his own pleasure then let him revel in that, in Ramsay’s frantic pounding as he finally lets the anger and the want and the power catch up with him and once again takes his dues from Theon’s flesh.  Let him wait.

Except it becomes evident that Theon will not wait; in fact he will come anyway, keening himself into an open mouthed howl as his body wrings tight around Ramsay's prick: his cock hitches and spasms untouched, seed spattering in pulses on the stone floor.

Ramsay groans, dropping Theon's arms to flop heavily by his sides, grabbing hold of his hips, and ramming deep. Theon needs rest and care, but he'll also need to know that Ramsay is sated, pleased with him and there's no longer any need to draw it out. So he drives in as fast and as hard as he wants to, no longer angling for that spot but he knows when he glances it because Theon wails. Ramsay picks up the small but heavy hide-bound ledger that's somehow managed to avoid being flung from the desk and whacks him across the shoulders with it to silence him. In truth he doesn't care how much noise Theon makes, especially now he's sobbing out the cries, tired and hurt and coming down fast from his cloud of bliss and so, so aware of how his surrender to it will be everything Ramsay desires right now, so willing for him. But it feels good, that last thrown movement, the sound of the impact, the shock of it shuddering up his arm and out as he throws the ledger off into a corner to smash in on its own spine, pages scattering out across the floor, and Theon whimpers at that too.

Ramsay pitches forward to mouthe at his shoulder and bites – not a suck to make it tingle and raise a bruise but a livid clamp of his teeth. He keeps pressing, channeling all the need in his body until he feels his teeth puncture the skin, and that's another wound he'll have to dress  but Theon is screaming, broken, there's blood in Ramsay’s mouth and He comes with all the violence and force that's been building into the waiting warmth of Theon's shaking body.

Ramsay withdraws as soon as the cascade of pleasure ebbs and pulls Theon back against his heaving chest: it's clumsy, his prick smears seed and grease against the back of Theon's slippery thigh and Ramsay's too busy kissing at the back of Theon's neck and the divot he's bitten into his shoulder to get a good hold on him. He just drags him from under his arms into bed, realising only after he's laid him back onto the furs that he remembers how fresh the wounds are – perhaps they've existed in his mind's eye for a long time – and pulls Theon as gently as he can to roll forwards and take his weight off them.

Theon settles, wriggles slightly and then rolls back onto his back. He must see the question in the way Ramsay is looking at him but he takes his time, heaving a weary, satisfied sigh before he can muster speech in answer.

“It feels better. Having the pressure against it. Not as... open.” He winces. “Otherwise it feels all… airy, and raw and horrible. Wurgh.”

Ramsay knows not to apologise, so he just nods, and shuffles to lay on his side where he can run his hands over Theon's chest, his arms, just stroking at him, giving his senses something to focus on other than the pain. After a time, when their breathing has calmed, he leaves to fetch and refill their wine goblet, returning to find Theon staring dreamily somewhere past the headboard of the bed, long fingers toying with the seam of a pillow.

“Am I in trouble?”

“Hmm?” Ramsay thought he'd made it abundantly clear that he wouldn't be holding Theon responsible for the whole sorry Galan mess… and the man wasn't yet half the mess he'll be when Ramsay has finished with him, and it's disappointing that he escaped that… but there's a childlike teasing in his tone the speaks of something less serious altogether.

“For spilling. Before you said I could.”

Ramsay almost laughs, almost chokes on wine in surprise, but does neither. He reaches a hand out to rub over the back of Theon's thigh.

“Oh gods no, sweet boy, you were so very good…”

Theon huffs and tips him a look over his shoulder that is part pout and part seduction, so lascivious that it beggars belief given the circumstances.

“You're no fun when you're going easy on me.”

“ _Going ea-?!”_ Ramsay breaks into panting laughter before he can so much as finish his sentence and Theon grins at him, accepts the wine this time and drains the goblet in short order, holding it up with a raise of his eyebrows as he swallows, to be refilled. Ramsay doesn’t even consider rebuking him for the cheek, under the circumstances, and he fusses absently at Theon with stroking and kisses, pouring more wine and taking the odd generous swig himself until they’ve emptied two skins and he thinks Theon is asleep against the slope of his shoulder.

After a few long moments of heady silence Theon struggles to sit up and Ramsay can’t help but worry. It shows in his face.

“I’m alright, Ram. Let me up, I need to piss.”

“Ah good! Wait just a moment?”

Theon makes a perhaps involuntary face which reads _oh Drowned God where is this going_ momentarily, but he makes an effort to school it into obedience and Ramsay loves him for that. He slides out of bed and digs around in the large trunk of generally misappropriated items at the end of their bed for a little longer than Theon is apparently entirely comfortable with triumphantly presents Theon with a tattered flask.

“Do it in this?”

“...”

“Don't worry. It's not for you.”

Theon tries to put the question into his face rather than having to ask it but really, he’s too tired and he gives up, instead accepting the bottle and climbing wearily to his feet. He's unsteady but strong; standing straight stretches his wounded skin and makes him flinch but once he's up, he starts to gingerly shuffle towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Ramsay stands wholly naked in the centre of the room, exhausted and blood streaked, and Theon is not intimidated by that in the slightest.

“I'm not pissing in a bottle in front of you, you fucking madman.”

“How is that any di-”

“It just is." Theon is lucid, and resolute. "I've just let you fucking skin me, The least you can afford me is a few moments of not wondering what you're up to, or having to look at the face you make when you're thinking about it, thank you very kindly.  I'd like to sleep tonight.”

Ramsay chuckles. Theon is just fine.

When Theon limps back from the privvy, Ramsay has redressed in simple woollens and a his gloves. That - the gloves mostly, if he's correct - gets an appreciative look from Theon, heavy lidded and interested oven though he's wrung right out. _Insatiable. Beautiful thing._

Theon climbs into the bed, naked still save for the wrappings around his fresh cuts that show just the barest red imprint of the letters, and flops atop the furs on his front, reaching for the wine goblet and another full skin. His skin shines and Ramsay swallows a momentary panic that he's slipped into fever, but the room is hot, Ramsay over stoked the fire to the extent he can't bear to put another layer on himself as he dresses, so it's no wonder Theon is sporting a sheen of sweat as he clambers back into the bed and adopts a lazy sprawl on his side from which he can drink wine without interrupting his view of Ramsay dressing.

It's quite stunning, how he can look so decadently relaxed, in his state.

“You don't have the look of a man coming to bed.”

“Later sweetling, get some sleep. I've got work to do.” Ramsay secures his belts around him. He’s boiling alive in the cocoon he’s created to keep Theon safe and each extra layer of leather is a fresh nightmare, but he’ll need them later.

The heated glance is dropped in favour of genuine confusion. “Now?”

“Oh, most definitely.”

And then Ramsay leaves, flask in hand. Theon, practiced as he is, doesn't ask.

 

** Epilogue. **

It's a moon or so before Ramsay presents Theon with his prize, so he doesn’t blame him for not recognising the significance of what he hands him.A neat diamond of hemmed and sealed leather, branded with a Bolton cross, attached to a loop of thonging as if to be worn as a talisman.

'What is this?” He's turning it over thoughtfully, admiring the work that's gone into it: Theon has gathered that this little token holds weight beyond its appearance.

“The skin of our enemies,” Ramsay announces, grandly, and forgives him for not realising straight away, He'll know it's human skin, but in all honesty Theon has a lot of enemies and Ramsay kills a lot of people, so he prompts gently. “Galan.” And then he beams with pride because, although the detail might be lost on this pampered boy from the Iron Islands, what he holds is two square inches of Ramsay Bolton's birth right. “Killed in front you, branded fresh... well, fresh as I could, you distracted me... flayed and hung and tanned in our own piss. His bones are keeping the dogs amused and these-” he stretches his arms out, “- are going to remind everyone what happens to those who touch my property uninvited.”

Ramsay is wearing new vambraces. They won't stand up to much, he's always hearing how poor human skin is for various uses, but they're flashy and pale against his dark red sleeves, conspicuously new in a way that invites questioning and the cautionary tale Ramsay is evidently bubbling to tell.

“They're very nice. But I think the head on the spike with the knife still in the eye did that.”

Given the snow, it had been a fortnight before enough flesh had sloughed away that the knife dropped to the ground and some brave soul had picked it up and returned it to its rightful owner. Ramsay had been so surprised and pleased to have it back that he'd rewarded them with a thick black winter pelt, fresh, bear by the looks of it, and didn't seem  to understand why they looked terrified. The fact the lad was of Mormont descent turned out to be just an unfortunate coincidence, but admittedly the sort you’d be unlikely to run into if you didn't habitually present people with skinned things.

Theon had wondered what had become of the rest of Galan's body but he now realises what a silly question that would have been, and why after looking after him and fucking him and then tending his wounds – again – Ramsay had been gone a full ten hours.

Theon had actually started to worry, and then he'd crashed back in, covered head to toe in dried gore and only stopped to rinse the worst off before taking him again, face to face and hot, hungry; hands all over him: pressing into his fresh injuries, smoothing over his skin, grabbing handfuls of his body wherever he could get a hold as if to verify that he was really there; pulling at Theon's cock until he came over their sweat slick and heaving chests. Ramsay had followed almost immediately, spilling into Theon with a desperate growl and then just as quickly collapsing onto him, still sheathed to the hilt, and by the time he softened and slipped from him Ramsay had already fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep. Theon had been afforded the day to lie in with him and recover from his injuries whilst Ramsay caught up a few hours' rest.

Theon will know Ramsay did every bit of that himself with the same attention to detail he would have applied to flaying the man in the first place, the same care he put into flaying just those tiny strips from Theon's back that have by now healed into raised, smooth pink relief. Flaying the man was a pleasure in itself: having something to do with his hands helped Ramsay deal with the lingering flares of rage, the sudden flashes of panic that otherwise made him prone to crippling headaches and bouts of vomiting, so that by the time he came back to Theon he was reasonable semblance of a human being again. His lord father always lectures that leeches are the answer; Theon always ventures that Roose may actually be exactly the monster everyone believes, in sharp contrast to his son who is believed to be so, _so much worse,_ but to Theon …

Nonetheless, Theon is unquestionably Bolton property now. The traditions of his master's house are writ large as his initials like an illuminated scroll in his skin, preserved for the ages, and it thrills them both: the memory of how Theon withstood that torture; his pride; the accuracy of Ramsay’s handiwork at his favourite craft; the fire it lit in them afterwards and still does to this day. After all, Theon is always on hand to help Ramsay work out the lust he riles up in the fulfilling of his family’s proud traditions, but getting to do it _to him_ **,** however minimally, was a unique prize. Just a token: a symbol of how far Theon will go, how he'll do anything Ramsay asks of him. Just as those scars are token of what Ramsay will do for him, for them, of what Ramsay is… and gods fucking help Theon, he loves him anyway.

The day Ramsay anoints Theon with his new sigil, there is an outpouring of emotion the like they’d not had since the first time they’d drunk far too much wine together and found themselves staring down the formidable, strangely convenient predicament of their love, as it was even if they weren’t willing to use those words at the time. They kiss hotly and fuck slowly and spend more time than either would admit under torture staring into each other’s eyes, understanding the fathoms of words that are never spoken other than with the bite of a knife, the crush of teeth and the yeilding of flesh, freely offered.

After, as they lay sated, Ramsay fingers the smooth, shiny lines at the end of the scabs on Theon's lower back as Theon fiddles unconsciously with the edges of the leather on the cord around his neck. Ramsay breathes deep, settling into the scent of Theon, of his blood, of their shared sweat and sex and the sound of Theon just living, breathing, settling down to sleep in Ramsay’s arms.

And in Ramsay's head, instead of the pounding, deafening rage, is the thick silence of new snow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. As always, comments and feedback are much appreciated and do tend to make my day.
> 
> That ending sounded a bit final but I do have a few one shots, PWPs and headcanon bonus fics on the boil and I am accepting prompts if they take my fancy! You can also find me on tumblr: Randomactsofviolence where I am always happy to hear from people.
> 
> Also, I was up to my bloody *eyeballs* in gin martinis when I finished and posted this so I'm going to be insufferably fucking pleased with myself if it's in any way coherent. Please encourage me, it only makes me worse ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback, comments, prompts and whatnot are always much appreciated.


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